Antiquarian book

Wingate Paine, Mirror of Venus, 1966

I recently purchased the first edition of Wingate Paine's book originally published in 1966. This was a lucky find at an antiquarian book store called 'The Monkey's Paw' in my neighbourhood located in the Toronto west end. It's hardcover with high quality printing by Random House publishing. The quality of this copy is in wonderful condition and even includes an endearing note from 'Gracie' as a Christmas present to her significant other.

Purchased from The Monkey's Paw (Link)

Wingate was one of the top advertising photographer's in the 1960s.

This book was his last photography-related release before retiring from the photo industry. It effectively became the culmination of his career. It was at the time considered to be pushing the bar for it's sensuality, but is quite tame by today's standards. The photographs are original with beautiful composition and lighting. Most of the photographs are in very challenging lighting scenarios such as key light behind model with virtual no fill at times.

The book contains three lead agency repped models: Sandy Brown, Carla Moliere and 'Scarlet'. These models were part of the New York agency that his wife Natalie Nickerson Paine founded in 1953 called Plaza Five Agency.

Natalie was originally a fashion model and it should be noted that she was one of the co-founders for Ford modelling agency in 1946 with Eileen Ford. Interestingly, this great achievement seems to be fairly hidden through almost all online resources citing only Eileen and her husband Gerard Ford as the founders. Ford modelling agency was the largest in the world at that time and still widely successful today.

Wingate's wife Natalie)co-founded Ford modelling agency in 1946 with Eileen Ford.

The photographs contained within are stunning and original with romantic, but occasional seemingly non-sensical words by both Federico Fellini and Françoise Sagan. Federico was a very successful Italian filmmaker while Françoise was known as a popular French playwright, novelist, and screenwriter.

The model below in front of the window shows that Wingate was not afraid of very challenging lighting scenarios - as we see with the large key light (window) behind the model.

The rim light on the model works perfectly while a slow shutter under a 1/60th captures the lovely motion as she moves with her flowing sheer robe. The density levels on the robe are only minimally lost on the high-key background - while the setting's decor create a striking silhouette for the scene.

While of course it seems no actual fill method was used - the floor itself of course acts as a large fill to bring the shadow levels to at least a percentage of visibility.

Overexposing table lamps

The photography with the model peering at the long stem rose is greatly overexposed for the table lamp practical. The table lamp is effectively burned out almost completely, but the result is the scene and skin tones are well filled-in with soft warm tones as the light bounces of the warm walls, white sheets, bright nightstand and most likely in a fairly enclosed space for further bounce fill.

Wingate knows what he's doing because you always take the practicals in the scene and use it as your key.

Many photographers will mistakenly overpower ceiling light bounce when shooting interiors and you lose a large portion of the directional light shape - whether from lamps or windows.

A greatly arched body along with a strained toe position shows the great skill by the model which allowed a perfect composition and capture. *Bare feet are of course particularly difficult to position and shoot in a way that is attractive to the viewer.

You would think this image is a simple photograph, but there are so many elements to it - I could write a blog post on this in itself.

The two photographs below are some more favourites. The image on the left is so striking with all composition elements perfectly captured.

Experienced photographers will know that models using handheld props such as books and wine glasses are challenging to make it look natural - it almost always looks forced and even silly. In most cases I recommend avoiding them completely unless you have an experienced model.

Notice the graphic leg position and how natural she looks - even the inner part of right knee seemingly rests on the corner of the table for the engaging composition.

The position of the legs accentuates her length with the left leg slightly raised allowing it to catch a beautiful rim light from the window.

She has curled toes for tension on the left foot and pointed femininity for the right.

I could keep going, but also notice the lamp on camera-right and how it catches that beautiful highlight - in general you always want interior decor/elements to be catching light shape in someway and be very purposeful when elements don't.

While the nature of this image below is exuding sensuality, it takes a seasoned pro to capture this properly.

Once again the key light is from behind (most difficult) with lovely motion blur as she moves with her sparkly sequinned dress. The brighter walls and lighter toned sheets on the bed would effectively be what's needed to bounce fill light onto her dress allowing it to catch reflected light and sparkle as shown.

*There is potential for a handheld silver/white bounce or even a low-power specular barebulb light source for the sparkle - but I doubt that as there is no shadow casting towards camera right - but it is possible to use that method and hide the light casting shadow out of frame when positioned correctly.

Of course, it's always best to use the main light source only and a second light is only added when it's absolutely necessary.

Take a close look at this side-profile photograph below with it's intentional cropping fitting perfectly into a phantom box. Wingate allowed just the right amount of white space past the rose petal in her mouth. A rose petal in the mouth and placed perfectly like a tongue creates a stimulating tension for the image - and the similarities with the eyelashes are perfect.